


The Cruise Job

by seraphina_snape



Category: Leverage
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aliases, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical shenanigans, Case Fic, Costumes, Cruise Ships, Gen, Humor, gen with canon pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphina_snape/pseuds/seraphina_snape
Summary: “Go home, pack a bag. We’re gonna go steal us a cruise ship.”(A job takes the Leverage team on a cruise.)





	The Cruise Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ginipig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginipig/gifts).



> Ginipig: You gave me some really amazing and inspiring prompts to work with, but you also mentioned something about an episode-like fic including the whole team. Basically, a Leverage episode in fic form. And that thought didn't let me go until I wrote it. *g* So here you go. I hope you like it! 
> 
> Much thanks to the lovely Fleur who, as always, did an amazing job betaing this story. <3

**Brew Pub  
Portland, Oregon**

Nate strode into the briefing room in the back of the Brew Pub like he owned the place, and Hardison gladly let him. They all had a boat to catch. Nate being here meant that they could finally get this briefing started before heading home to pack. 

"All right, Hardison. Run it!" 

Hardison grabbed the remote and stood up, positioning himself in the perfect spot in front of the others. He loved this bit: him with the information about the case at his fingertips, and the rest of the team hanging on his every word waiting to hear all about it.

Before he could start, however, Sophie turned to Nate and leaned forward in her seat. "You're late."

"I'm not late,” Nate protested. “I called this meeting. How can I be late for my own meeting?"

"You did say right away," Sophie pointed out. “Ten minutes ago.” She made a vague gesture towards the rest of the room. "Everybody else is here." 

Nate raised a pointed eyebrow at Parker’s empty chair. "Parker?"

Sophie waved a hand. "She's around here somewhere."

Nate turned back to Hardison. "Hardison. The briefing. What are we dealing with?"

Hardison glanced at Sophie, who sat back in her chair with an audible huff. "Right," he muttered. 

He clicked to the first slide and then gestured to his right where the face of a man in his early fifties appeared. "Meet the client," he intoned, swinging his finger over to his left just as he hit the 'next' button, making a second picture appear. "And the crook," he continued. 

"Client's name is Dale Cosgrove, 53, married, currently out on bail. He was arrested for theft and industrial espionage a month ago. They couldn't make the bullshit spy stuff stick – no surprise there, it took me about two seconds of looking at the evidence to see it was all fabricated – but they did arrest him for theft. He made bail four days ago and is currently sitting out in the Brew Pub enjoying a complementary meal.”

Live surveillance footage popped up behind Hardison, showing the man from the first photograph eating a bowl of Eliot’s excellent chili. 

“So the guy got framed for theft,” Eliot commented. “Not exactly our kind of job.”

“And industrial espionage. E-spi-o-nage,” Hardison emphasized. “That’s where it gets interesting.” 

“Our crook’s name is Håkon Berg. He is the CEO and owner of Dream Cruise Inc. Our client used to be the captain of one of his cruise ships until he was fired for the aforementioned fake espionage charges and equally trumped up theft charges. According to our client, Dream Cruise Inc. has been on a steady decline since Berg took over from his old man. Suddenly there’s cost cutting in all the wrong places. Like safety measures and personnel.”

Another click of the remote brought up the picture of a man in his late forties, with graying brown hair and small dark eyes. 

“This is our client’s replacement, by the way. Captain Aaron Landers. Except up until a year ago, the largest boat this guy ever operated was Mr. Berg’s personal yacht. He has zero experience as a captain of something as large as a cruise ship, and he’s a personal friend of Berg to boot.”

“Yeah,” Nate cut in. “From what Dale told me, they’ve fired a bunch of seasoned personnel and hired newer, cheaper, less skilled workers to do the job. A lot of them don’t meet the mandatory requirements with regards to safety training. Basically they hired people who’d never spent a day aboard a ship, handed out a bunch of fake safety instruction certificates and set off.”

“That’s criminal,” Sophie agreed, “but the most that will get Berg is a citation and some fines. We need more than that.”

“Oh, I got more,” Hardison assured her. Flicking through his slides, he found the one he was looking for and projected it up on the screen. “Berg Junior took over two years ago. This is the official statistic in terms of accidents on board any of his ships for the last twelve months.”

They all studied the slide, noting a few small kitchen fires, some cases of theft and a few natural deaths. 

“And?” Eliot shook his head. “I’m not seeing it.”

Hardison grinned. “That’s because this slide? Is bogus. Highly sanitized. The real one would look more like this.” 

Eliot leaned back in his chair. “Woah.”

“That--“ Sophie broke off. Slowly, a smile spread over her lips. “Now that we can work with.” She glanced at Nate. “Are we going in as corporate?”

Eliot leaned forward. “Nah, if Landers is close with Berg, he might figure it out too soon. We should do a Coast Guard Shuffle.”

“We got coast guard uniforms, but organizing the boat would take a few hours,” Hardison said. “And—“

“We’re not doing the Coast Guard Shuffle,” Sophie cut in, shaking her head. “I look terrible in a uniform.”

“We’d need someone on the ground anyway.”

But Sophie kept shaking her head. “No. We should just go with a variant of the Rip Deal. Sell them phony lifejackets, rake in the cash and then call in an anonymous tip to the coast guard.”

Hardison cleared his throat and gave Eliot and Sophie a reproving look. “If you’d let me finish? We can’t go in as corporate because Berg is actually on the boat for the rest of the current cruise. Some kind of promotion/advertising deal about how amazing and wonderful his cruise liners are that he won’t vacation anywhere else. And we _could_ do the Coast Guard Shuffle, but we’d probably have to deal with Berg directly, and from what I’ve turned up in my searches, he’s one suspicious dude. Won’t trust anyone except a handful of people.”

“Hm.” Nate pursed his lips in thought, then turned his gaze upwards. “Parker? Your opinion?”

They all looked up, seeing Parker, suspended in one of her climbing harnesses, hanging upside down from the rafters. 

Parker smiled. “I think we need to keep it simple. Go old school.”

Nate made a thoughtful noise and started nodding. “Yeah, old school is good. We’re doing this one old school.” He stood up. “Go home, pack a bag. We’re gonna go steal us a cruise ship.”

 

**Somewhere along the Miami coast  
Three Days Later**

Nate leaned back against the bar, sipping his whiskey. Except for the bartender, who was polishing the far end of the bar, the room was entirely empty. Most people, Nate suspected, were either in their cabins getting situated or outside watching the boat cast off. 

“Eliot,” he murmured, “please tell me Sophie made it onboard.” 

Sophie, of course, had insisted on making an _entrance_ , delving into her character straight away. In his eyes, it had just been an excuse to go shopping, but what did he know? 

“Oh,” Eliot replied, “she got here all right. She and her forty-two pieces of luggage.” 

“Don’t be such a baby,” Sophie’s voice joined in. 

“Baby? I had to carry all that stuff!”

Sophie scoffed. “You had a trolley.”

“She didn’t even tip me!”

“Children,” Nate cut in. He sighed. “Eliot, next time you can be the one to distract the mark with your womanly wiles and Sophie can be our jack-of-all-trades, all right?”

He tuned out Eliot’s grumbling. “Sophie, how’s it going?”

“Well, he’s definitely noticed me.” 

Nate’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket. On it, he found message from Hardison. Opening it, a video started auto-playing, showing Sophie’s arrival on board. She wore glitzy heels and a slinky dress. Her hair was… bigger, and even on video she reeked of money. Not the classy kind of old money, but the newer, married-rich-and-got-richer-in-the-divorce kind of money. 

“In that outfit, I would have been surprised if he hadn’t.” 

He could hear Sophie’s smug smile in her answer. “Thank you. Now excuse me – I’m going to walk past our mark and maybe get him to play hero.” 

“Good way to get a foot in the door, but don’t overdo it.”

Sophie sighed. “Nate, I’ve been doing the slip-and-rescue for _decades_. I know how to slip in heels.”

“All right, all right. Do your thing.”

Nate downed the last of his whiskey and ordered another.

# 

Hardison paced the length of his cabin, tugging at the unfamiliar uniform with every second step. Parker, sitting on his bed, shot him an annoyed glance.

“You keep messing up the buttons.”

Hardison looked down. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Parker stood and batted his hands away. “Just stop doing it.”

She began fixing his uniform, and Hardison tried to calm down. 

It wasn’t working too well, and Eliot’s steady flow of complaints wasn’t helping either.

“—just saying, why does she always get to be the one waited on hand and foot? I want to do one job – just one freaking job – where I don’t have to schlep for rich people!”

“Why are you complaining to me? I'm the one having to drive this huge freaking boat with six thousand people on it! But sure, complain about how much of a disaster it would be if some rich lady complained that the scampi weren't at exactly the right temperature. I'm sure those are entirely similar concepts!”

“Don’t be mean, Hardison,” Parker murmured, smoothing down the front of his uniform, once more in perfect order. 

“Whatever, Hardison. It's all computers anyway. I gotta pay for extra laundry. Do you know how many kids have spilled their drinks on me today? No way is doing laundry twice a week enough. This entire system is set up to get the little guy. I’m telling you, there are worse problems on board than faulty life boats.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, were you whining at me? Only I've gotta go make sure we don't hit any reefs and DIE, so I’m kinda busy.”

“We’re in the middle of the ocean, Hardison. What are you gonna hit – more water?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hardison said, giving Parker a betrayed look when she pushed him out of the cabin and pointed towards the bridge. “You have complaints, tell 'em to Nate.”

“Speaking of…” Nate’s voice came over the comms. “You two realize you've been broadcasting to all of us, right?”

There was a moment of silence over the comms. 

The last thing Parker heard before the feed shut off was a huff of breath and Eliot, distantly, like the ear bud was suddenly further away from his face, half-yelling "Damnit, Hardison!"

# 

Hardison stopped just before the doors to the bridge. The walls were mostly glass, so he took out his tablet and tried to look busy and definitely not like he was stalling. “Okay, but Nate—“ he started in a heated whisper, only to be cut off nearly immediately.

“No, Hardison.”

“But I’m not—“

“You’ll do fine.” 

“No, I won’t. I’ll push the wrong button and everything will shut down and we’ll capsize and _die_ , Nate. DIE. It’ll be horrible and—“

“Hardison,” came Sophie’s calm voice.

“—the news will call it the greatest marine disaster of modern times and—“

“Hardison.”

“—not only will we not get the bad guy and help the mark, we’ll also kill a few thousand people and—“

“ _Hardison!_ ”

Hardison finally took a breath. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Calm down,” Sophie said. “Did you, or did you not, once land a plane with a computer? While being several hundred miles away? Did you, or did you not, take over an airport tower and bring a plane carrying several hundred people down safely?”

“Well. Yeah, I did do that.”

“Yes, you did. And you can do this. It’s is easy. There's nothing but ocean around. It's all computers. You like computers. You _love_ computers.” 

Subconsciously, Hardison started nodding along with Sophie. He did love computers.

“You can do computers, Hardison. This isn't something you're clueless about. This is exactly your thing.”

“Right. My thing.” Hardison nodded. “I can do this. Learn how to steer a 900 ft ship. In three hours. It's fine. I'm gonna rock this.”

Three decks below, Sophie smiled and walked back inside where the mark was waiting.

# 

“All right, I’ve got all the extra cameras installed,” Eliot reported over the comms, pushing his handyman cart in front of him. So far he’d fixed seven bathroom lights, nine broken locks and one stuck balcony door. The janitor job was definitely miles better than the waiter gig. Fewer kids spilling stuff. Fewer demanding old rich ladies who ended their lunches with a tip (not always generous) and a grope (always disgusting).

There was no one in the corridor but him, so Eliot allowed himself to lean a little more heavily on his cart. According to Sophie, a cruise liner was big enough that you didn’t really feel the motion of the sea, but Eliot just knew he could feel the up and down, side to side motion with every nausea-inducing step. 

He pushed the discomfort aside like he always did and crossed into another hallway, passing a security guard with a short nod and an unassuming air. Once the guard was far enough away, he tapped his comm again. 

“Security guards are pretty much useless. I’m pretty sure their main qualification had to be ‘looks good in a uniform’. The only ones I’ve seen that have some skill are the ones hanging around Berg and the captain. The rest aren’t gonna be a problem.” 

“Considering we’re likely going to be dealing with exactly those guards who do know what they’re doing, this isn’t really as comforting as it could be,” Sophie commented. 

“If things go to plan, you won’t have anything to worry ab—“

A door along the corridor opened and a woman with a toddler on her arm poked her head out. She spotted Eliot. “Oh, good, you’re here!”

“Ma’am?”

“The clogged toilet? I called up to reception so they’d send someone?”

Eliot’s polite smile froze. “Right. Show me.”

The woman turned and headed back inside her cabin. 

Eliot sighed and grabbed a plunger from his tool cart, giving it a menacing twirl before shooting a dark look at the newly installed cameras, sure that Nate would see it. 

Suddenly being back in the dining room serving rowdy kids and inattentive parents didn’t sound like such a rough deal anymore.

# 

As the sun approached the horizon, Parker slid into the VIP lounge.

Their mark was sitting in a private booth in the corner, clearly waiting for someone. She took a tablet from the waiter’s station and snatched a drink from the bar before heading right towards the mark. 

For a split second, Parker considered accidentally-on-purpose dumping his drink on him in order to lift his phone, but Nate would be mad if she delayed First Contact any longer than necessary. Besides, they didn’t need his actual phone for this plan to work, just the data off it. Slightly disappointed, Parker sighed and dropped her pen in order to linger at his table for a few more seconds, setting the spare phone Hardison had given her to clone the mark’s.

As she turned to leave, Parker spotted Nate at the bar. She nodded, and Nate raised his hand to his ear. 

“Sophie,” came his voice over the comms, “it’s time for your entrance.”

# 

Sophie had changed into a flowing long summer dress in a dark pink that was just a shade too dark to look truly spectacular on her. Her nail polish matched, but her lipstick didn’t.

It was just the image she wanted to cultivate. Rich and classy enough to appear familiar and trustworthy to Berg, but not classy (or rich) enough to be the same boring type of woman he’d known all his life. 

Sophie paused just inside the doors, ostensibly checking her makeup in a small compact mirror she’d drawn from her purse. In reality, she was just getting the lay of the land and letting Berg notice her. After all, if she did her job, she didn’t have to approach the mark. The mark came to her.

“Sophie,” Parker said out of nowhere, slightly startling Sophie. 

“Parker, don’t do that!”

Parker gave her a confused look. “Do what?”

“Sneak up on—oh, nevermind. What did he say?”

Parker shrugged. “I don’t know, I never listen when guys like him talk. But I think the gist of it was that you should join him.”

“All right- Bring us a bottle of champagne – the good stuff – and keep it coming.” 

“Okay. And don’t forget these.”

Sophie felt a light touch on her shoulder, the only indication that Parker had reached for her bag. She was sure that little touch had been on purpose – not even a professional like her could ever notice a thief on Parker’s level at work.

Sophie made eye contact with the mark and smiled, crossing the room towards him. Just before she reached his table, Nate bumped into her from the side. His drink went flying and Sophie dropped her purse. 

Berg was out of his seat and helping her up faster than any of the waiters, and Sophie played a little extra helpless, clutching at his arm. Berg didn’t notice that she stuck a small microphone that Parker had slipped her to his gold Rolex at the same time.

“I’m so terribly sorr—Cynthia? Oh my god, it _is_ you! How have you been? Where’s Walter?”

“Portugal. With the secretary.” Sophie smiled, cringing inwardly at Nate’s sloppy Texan accent. He really ought to work on it. “Hello, RJ, what a surprise! I didn’t know you were a fan of cruises?”

Nate gave a vague wave. “Ah, you know. We’ve restructured the company, expanded into all of this stuff, you know. Those shipwreck rafts and life jackets and all that. Except it’s not moving as well as the eggheads down at the head office expected, so I’m here to check it out.” He pushed his hat a little higher up his forehead. “Sorry about Walter. I hadn’t heard.”

“Well...” Sophie heaved a sigh that hopefully expressed how heartbroken Cynthia was, despite finally getting over Walter. She made a mental note to practice the right kinds of sighs with her acting students. “Oh, look at us being absolutely rude to Mr. Berg here. RJ, this is Hookon – am I pronouncing this right? – Berg. Mr. Berg, this is an old friend of mine, Mr. RJ Wilmington. Of the Dallas Wilmingtons,” she added in an undertone like that was supposed to mean something to Berg. 

“It’s Håkon Berg,” Berg corrected, holding out a hand for Nate. 

Sophie stepped a little closed to Berg as he and Nate shook hands. “RJ! Maybe Mr. Berg can help you with your problem. Being the owner of such a large boat, he’s bound to know what’s actually necessary to have and what’s really just—“ she waved a hand in the air “—extra.”

Berg didn’t look at all happy at the suggestion, but Nate didn’t give him much room to protest. Five minutes later, they were all seated in Berg’s booth and Nate had the mark firmly entrenched in a business discussion about life jackets.

# 

“He’s blocking me.”

Sophie, lounging on one of the sofas in her suite, reached for the complementary fruit platter and selected a strawberry. She took a thoughtful bite and nodded. “He didn’t jump on any of your hints. And you did get more than obvious towards the end there.”

“But why is he blocking you? Shouldn’t he be all over this really cheap solution to his many security problems? What crook wouldn’t want to save money like this?”

Eliot grabbed an apple from the fruit platter, but sat down without taking a bite.

Sophie gave him a concerned look. “Are you all right?”

“What?” Eliot shifted in his seat and took a large bite out of his apple. “I’m fine.”

Sophie narrowed her eyes. “You don’t look fine.”

Eliot swallowed and turned to Nate. “So, the mark. What’s his problem?”

Parker strode in, followed by Hardison. He was still in his uniform while Parker had changed into her usual working clothes – her all black climbing gear. 

“His problem is that he doesn’t have a problem,” she proclaimed. She took off her backpack and set it down on the table, nearly squashing the fruit platter. “Look.” She unzipped her backpack and removed a bright orange something from it.

“Is that… a lifejacket?” 

“Yup.”

Eliot took the lifejacket and turned it over in his hands. “So?”

Parker gave him an annoyed look and grabbed it back from Eliot. “So it’s supposed to inflate when you pull this bit here.” She pulled on the plastic tab.

Nothing happened.

Nate took the lifejacket and inspected it. “I guess that would be one reason why he doesn’t want to buy my phony lifejackets.” He looked at Parker. “What else did you find?”

“There are enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew.”

Hardison nodded. “I checked the logs. According to official records, they were all inspected at the beginning of the year and passed with flying colors.”

“Except,” Parker injected, “most of the hinges were rusted shut, several are used as additional storage and one of them had a hole in it.”

“A hole?”

Parker nodded. “About this big,” she added, forming a rough tennis ball size with her hands. 

Eliot let out an impressed-yet-disgusted whistle. “This is a lot worse than we thought.”

“Okay, people, change of plans. RJ is officially out of business, but the other players still have their jobs to do.” Nate clapped his hands. “Hardison, I need you to trace where Berg got his safety equipment. Trace the money. Get us anything useful from his records. Parker—“

“Gotcha.” She held up a small camera and Nate nodded in approval. 

Beaming, Parker turned to leave, catching Hardison’s sleeve as she went past. He followed her out.

“Eliot, call your guy. Make sure he’s ready even if we move our timeframe up a couple of days.” 

Eliot nodded and pulled out his phone, heading outside to make his call.

“Sophie, depending on how Hardison’s search goes, we might be moving on to Phase 2 tomorrow. Make sure you’re ready.”

Sophie stood and looked at Nate. “And what are you going to do, now that your role in this con is superfluous?”

Nate grinned up at her. “Oh, I think I’m going to enjoy this five star suite while the rest of you are working.”

“Well,” Sophie said, making her way towards the bedroom. “My part doesn’t start until the morning, so I guess I could enjoy some of the amenities until then.” She shot him a flirtatious look over her shoulder before entering the bedroom. 

Nate laughed and followed her.

# 

The next morning, Hardison appeared on the bridge bright and early for his shift. The staff captain set him to monitor the autopilot and then fully concentrated on his coffee and crossword. Hardison took the resulting freedom from close and direct supervision and prepared everything for the day before going back to studying the on-board computer system. He was actually getting the hang of it by the time the others were up and ready.

“Hardison. Camera three.” 

“Recording,” Hardison murmured, opening the small window on his laptop to take a look at the scene. 

On the video player, Eliot – in his janitor outfit – approached the security station where the hotel manager had just stopped by. The cameras they’d placed had sound, but his laptop was on mute. Hardison could still hear everything over his earbud though. 

“Sorry. Uh, one of the kids dropped his toy over the side and it got caught in the rigging for one of the lifeboats. They asked me to get it, but, uh…” Eliot trailed off. “Like, today is my second day and I don’t know where you keep all that stuff.”

The hotel manager, already annoyed to be approached, gave Eliot a confused look. “What stuff?”

“You know, like rigging and stuff. Safety lines? I mean, to get the toy I’m gonna have to go out across the railing. That’s like eight decks over the ocean.”

The security guard listening to the conversation scoffed. “What? You scared?”

“No?” Eliot looked a little green. “I’m just not so good with heights, you know?”

The hotel manager gave a put-upon sigh and patted Eliot’s shoulder in a patronizing way. “Look, uh—“

“Joey.”

“Joey, right. Look, Joey, the way things work on board here is that you do your job with minimal fuss. You don’t trek all the way to storage to get some ropes when that would take four times longer than just getting the damn toy.”

“But what if I slip?”

The hotel manager shrugged. “Don’t think about it. You’ll be fine. Just, hold on to something. Or, you know, don’t slip.”

“Right.” 

Eliot turned to leave and Hardison stopped the recording.

# 

Eliot almost didn’t recognize Sophie in her new disguise. Blonde wig, a knee-length broad patterned dress and bright red flip flops. Topped off with an obvious Australian accent, she looked completely different from her usual self or her Cynthia disguise.

“Hardison, I hope you’re getting this,” she said before pulling out her phone. She started to record a video of her own, narrating her holiday experience in a loud voice. 

Back on the bridge, Hardison received a livestream of her recording on top of his regular camera feeds. In the background of Sophie’s video, Eliot was setting up his ladder, his body language broadcasting unease.

“Hey, mister, I’m trying to make a video here. How long do you think you’re gonna be?”

“Not long, hopefully,” Eliot replied, climbing the ladder with unsteady legs. “Just gotta get a toy someone dropped. I’ll be out of your way soon.”

“All right.” Sophie waited, tapping her foot. 

On the ladder, Eliot leaned across the lifeboat to grab the neon green stuffed crocodile Parker had helpfully placed there the night before. 

“See,” he said, holding up the toy for Sophie to see, “done already. Lemme just get down there and—“

With a startled yelp, Eliot lost his grip on the lifeboat and toppled over the railing.

Sophie screamed and ran towards the railing, nearly tripping over the ladder that had fallen down during Eliot’s fall. 

On the bridge, Hardison switched to another camera and just caught the moment an Eliot-shaped blur hit the water. The second video player showed Sophie’s shaky video. 

On deck, a crowd started to gather around Sophie, and she did her best to induce a small panic. 

“Nate, security is on the way. Sophie, you should get out.”

“Oh my god, I can’t see him anymore. Oh my god!” Sophie’s voice got a little more hysterical with every word. She still made sure to get the image of the stuffed crocodile drifting alone in the ocean before she cut her video feed and headed for the fast approaching security guards. 

“Oh my god, officers! He just fell and now I can’t see him!”

The security officer looked completely out of his depth, and Sophie quickly hid her smile when he failed to calm anyone down.

The hotel manager took two minutes to arrive, and he zeroed in on Sophie right away. “Miss, please, calm down. I’m sure this is all just a big misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?” Sophie screeched. “A man just fell overboard and NONE OF YOU ARE DOING ANYTHING?”

“Please, Miss, let’s take this inside. Would you like a complimentary bottle of champagne?”

“Champagne? Are you trying to SILENCE ME? Is this a BRIBE?!”

The crowd started muttering.

With a nod of the hotel manager’s head, two security guards flanked Sophie and escorted her inside. Several waiters appeared and started distributing drinks to calm the crowd. 

“Hey! That’s my phone! You can’t take my phone!”

Sophie made a frustrated sound and weakly fought back when the two guards pushed her into an office and locked the door. As soon as the door was closed, Sophie’s features smoothed out, and she smiled a little smugly. “Nate? Phase 2 completed.”

# 

News of the trouble reached the bridge two minutes later. The staff captain gave the conn to one of the other navigators and called the captain. They took off together and Hardison let himself fade into the background in order to monitor his feeds without interference from the rest of the crew.

Safely inside the small break room, he opened his laptop and called up video and audio feeds. He’d just set up when the door opened and a security guard walked in. After a brief moment of intense panic, the security guard lifted his head and Hardison recognized the face under the hat.

“Guys, Eliot is with me.” 

“You were supposed to wait below in the staff-only areas, Eliot,” Nate’s voice came over the comms. “What if someone recognizes you?”

Eliot scoffed. His long hair was hidden underneath the cap and he’d chucked the pair of glasses janitor-Eliot had worn. His grease-stained overalls had been exchanged for freshly pressed dark pants and a dark blue uniform shirt. Dress shoes and a utility belt that included handcuffs, a taser and a nightstick completed the outfit. “If anyone recognizes me, I’ll eat this hat.”

“Uh, guys? We may have a slight problem.” Hardison played back a short audio file of the captain and Berg debating what to do about the “situation”. 

“We don’t have any friends on the local coast guard,” Berg was saying on the recording. “We can’t afford any sort of attention right now. No rescue, no inspection, absolutely no news reports.” 

“The woman’s not going to keep quiet,” the captain replied. “She’s got a video on her cell phone.”

“Delete it. And any other evidence,” Berg said. “In fact… call Dieter. Tell him he’s got to take care of a little problem for us.”

“Håkon …”

“Do _you_ want to go to jail?”

“No.”

“Then call Dieter.”

The recording shut off. “Sophie’s in trouble,” Hardison summed up, “and Eliot just went overboard. Metaphorically speaking. He can’t ride to the rescue, or he blows the whole plan.”

Eliot already had his hand on the door handle, a defiant expression on his face. “So what? We’ll get him with the rest of the evidence.”

“Eliot, stop.” Nate sounded way too calm for someone whose girlfriend was about to get killed. “Parker, you’re up.”

Eliot relaxed fractionally, but didn’t sit back down. 

“Hardison, cameras.”

Hardison nodded. He called up all the cameras along Parker’s route and started a playback.

# 

Sophie looked up when the door opened, hoping for Parker but expecting the worst.

It _was_ Parker, a slightly manic grin on her face as she walked in taser first. Her grin fell a little when she discovered no one besides Sophie inside the room. 

“You ready?”

“Give me ten seconds.” Sophie pulled off her blonde wig and the overly large sunglasses she’d stuck on top of her head. She took a pair of black leggings and a silver top out of her enormous canvas handbag and changed out of the sundress. To finish her new look, she changed the flip flops for a pair of kitten heels and lined her mouth in a dark red. 

Stuffing all the tourist clothing into the handbag, she nodded at Parker.

Parker opened the door and peered out, waving Sophie along when she didn’t see anyone.

Outside, one of the security guards lay prone on the floor, clearly unconscious. One more was slumped around the corner.

“Nicely done, Parker.”

Parker smiled.

“Don’t linger, girls, Dieter is on his way and he does not look like he’d be impressed with your taser, Parker.” 

“I do a mean spin-kick as well,” Parker said, but she picked up the pace.

Alarmed, Hardison tried to warn her. “No, don’t go that wa—“

Parker came face to face with a broad chest. “Woah. Right, let me guess: Dieter? Yeah, Hockem, uh, Harkon, ehh, Hook-em. You know, Mr. Berg? He mentioned you’d stop by. She’s right in… _there_.”

Dieter’s unimpressed gaze traveled from Parker to Sophie and back to Parker. And her taser. He raised one of his giant hands and— yelped in surprise as something hit his back. The something turned out to be Eliot, trying to hook one arm around Dieter’s enormous neck while keeping him from attacking Parker or Sophie. 

“Go!” Eliot pressed out. “Now!”

Parker jumped and grabbed Sophie’s arm, dragging her through the door and towards the elevators.

# 

“You were supposed to stay hidden.”

Eliot rolled his eyes at Nate. “You’re welcome.”

He was disheveled, his cap lost somewhere in the struggle. A small cut above his right eye proved that although Eliot had won the fight, it hadn't gone easily. 

"Parker and Sophie make it back okay?"

Hardison didn't look up from his laptop, but Nate nodded. "Yeah, they're…" He waved towards the bedroom. 

As if on cue, the door opened and Parker and Sophie strode in, Parker bouncing slightly on her feet. She bumped her shoulder into Eliot's – harder than necessary, considering she already had his attention and he already had a bruise in that spot – and grinned. "Thanks for returning my harness." 

Eliot nodded. He wasn't too fond of all the acrobatic stuff Parker did. Jump-falling over the side of a moving cruise liner while wearing a concealed harness and rope attached was better than doing it without the harness, but that hadn't make it fun for him. Five years ago, the thought of putting his life so squarely into someone else's hands would have been laughable. These days he trusted his team to have his back. 

"Guys," Hardison said, finally lifting his head from his laptop. "Good news all around. I talked to Eliot's guy in the Coast Guard; they're maybe ten minutes out. And people have been cancelling their trips and declaring their intentions to leave the cruise all morning. This boat's gonna be a ghost ship for the next leg of the cruise."

"Good," Nate said, satisfaction playing on his features. "Now for the pièce de resistance." 

Hardison grinned. "I gotcha, man." He grabbed his phone and started making calls, pausing only long enough to hand Parker and Sophie a phone and a piece of paper each. "Get busy, ladies."

Eliot kept his post by the door, still too tense to relax. There weren't many places to escape to on a boat in the middle of the ocean. He could keep his team safe, but he couldn't do it if he was sleeping on the job.

"Eliot." 

Nate's voice was quiet, barely cutting through the hubbub of Parker, Sophie and Hardison all talking at once. 

Eliot looked at him.

Nate raised his glass in a mock salute. "Thank you."

# 

Hardison attached the last sticker to the team's luggage and straightened up. The luggage would be send down to the unloading bay to be shipped home (well, to the fake address on the label, which meant that it would end up back at the depot where he could pick it up a day later), meaning that none of them had to be burdened by suitcases and bags while sneaking (or, in Sophie's case, flouncing) off-board.

He wore the dress uniform, mostly because he looked damn good in it, and signed out before leaving the boat. He wouldn't be back, of course, but the first thing he'd learned from Sophie was that staying in character during a con was the most important thing. 

Parker was waiting in a café around the corner, working her way through a huge ice cream sundae. He fought her for some of it but ended up getting his own while they waited for the others to join them. 

Eliot appeared next, and Hardison breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Not that he'd doubted Eliot's ability to be sneaky, but he had fallen to his untimely death not even twenty-four hours before. If someone had recognized him—

"What?" Eliot growled. 

"Nothing." Hardison swallowed a laugh. "Nice wig."

Eliot growled again and tore the dirty blond wig from his head. "Sophie's idea." He leaned forward. "Did you know that she brought wigs and costumes for all of us?"

Hardison was touched, and a little pissed off. The costumes were _his_ thing. He did the aliases; he made the costumes.

Under the table, Parker kicked him. "Look."

Two police cars followed by a police van drove past them and turned towards the waterline. 

 

**The Brew Pub  
** Portland, Oregon  
One Day Later 

"—and then they said that the case against me had taken on a completely new direction since the new evidence started pouring in and that all charges were dropped. My lawyer says I have a shot at getting compensation from the cruise line for, well... A bunch of things. I don't even know how to thank you."

"Don't worry about it, Dale," Nate said. "You don't have to thank us. This is what we do."

"No, but really—"

"Really, it's fine," Sophie interrupted. She clapped the man's shoulder and gently pushed him towards the table "Here, sit down. You have to stay for dinner. Eliot is a marvel in the kitchen."

Parker, fork already in her hand, nodded. "He's an amazing cook. Almost better than he is at hitting people."

Dale shot her an uncertain look. "Um, all right. I still don't know how to repay yo—"

"Seriously, man, don't worry." Hardison grinned. "We've got it covered."

Nate set down his glass. "We've got an alternative revenue stream to cover our expenses."

Eliot helped Amy dish up the last of the meals and sat down, giving the unofficial signal to dig in. 

In the background, a news report flashed across the TV. It showed footage of Berg being detained at an airport, then cut to several men in suits and uniforms being led to FBI vehicles before focusing on the reporter in the foreground. Eliot quickly turned up the sound.

"…but the real hero of this story is Captain Dale Cosgrove, who after being released on bail, uncovered the evidence that led to the accusations against him being dropped and charges brought on his replacement and several members of the cruise line's board of directors and especially its owner Håkon Berg, a Norwegian national, for neglect, failure to adhere to safety regulations and endangering the public. Unsurprisingly Berg Cruise stock has dropped considerably over the last twenty-four hours. I'm going to give this over to Brad, at the New York Stock Market right now. Brad, can you tell us how this has affected today's trading?"

Eliot turned his attention away from the TV and let his gaze drift over the table full of his friends and family. He smiled and raised his glass, waiting for the others to follow suit. 

"I guess that's another one for the good guys," he said. "Cheers, everyone!"

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! 
> 
> Happy Holidays, everyone!


End file.
